THE NATION: Fighting Fire

Spread out across the eastern shore of
the Mediterranean this week was the greatest concentration of U.S.
armed might ever assembled in peacetime. In a historic show of land,
sea and air power, the U.S. had moved swiftly to answer the cries for
help from the friendly government of a small nationLebanonthat
stood in imminent danger of overthrow from subversion. Of itself, the
show of strength rocked the Communists, who count on subversion to win
the cold war, provoked Moscow's Khrushchev into a demand for a summit
conference (see below) and titillated him into a threat of nuclear
rocket retaliation....